UPREZ workflow- must EFX be done after?

[Jerry Hofmann]

The “damage” was done when you shot DV… you cannot improve it by putting it into an uncompressed sequence. In fact, theory states that you actually are losing some quality doing so… So for now, stay all DV… FCP 5 has the ability to improve render quality BTW over FCP HD… If you really want improvement, you need to shoot digibeta, DVCPRO50 or better in the first place. I really don’t think you’ll see any improvement putting DV into a higher qualtiy sequence…

Jerry

[Graeme Nattress]

But, by doing the final render in an uncompressed sequence, you don’t loose quality by that final render back to DV and all your effects will look better. By placing a magic chroma filter like G Nicer (From Film Effects) on each DV clip you can boost the chroma nearly up to DigiBeta standards, and hence make a much improved DVD at the expense of the extra render time. Even just adding Apple’s 4:1:1 chroma smoother will help as NTSC DV’s 4:1:1 clashes with DVD’s 4:2:0 quite badly. Smoothing or fixing the chroma first really helps.

Graeme

– http://www.nattress.com – Film Effects and Standards Conversion for FCP

[Dan Riley]

Graeme is right about how to make your DV footage look better.
Also, titles look much better uncompressed.
Any key effects you do will look better uncompressed.
Shooting DVCAM and finishing uncompressed is not a bad
workflow. Of course as Jerry said, shooting Digibeta is
nice too. But you do what you can.

You need a video card and a fast drive array though.
This isn’t just about selecting a different codec.
It’s much more involved to edit and playout uncompressed.
It’s worth it in my opinion but there is some expense.
Go to Aurora, AJA or Blackmagic.
Dan

[Justin Ferar]

Graeme,

By having already completed all my compositing in the DV timeline is it too late to to uprez? In other words should I have just done a cuts only edit in DV, then bring into a higher rez timeline and then do compositing etc.

I ask becuase I am wondering what FCPs render flow is. When I drop a DV progam into a Hi Rez program it neads to render. My real question is will it re-render all the nested effects at Hi Rez or just take whatever is in the program (already rendered as DV) and Up Rez that.

Question number two is: If I never rendered the DV timeline AND THEN dropped it in a Hi Rez timeline, would all the nested compositing and EFX be rendered as animation or DV50 or whatever the Hi Rez codec is?

Hmmm?

[Graeme Nattress]

FCP always re-renders to produce the best quality, so no, it’s not too late. What I tend to do is just dupe the DV sequence and then change the settings on the dupe to be uncompressed etc.

Graeme

– http://www.nattress.com – Film Effects and Standards Conversion for FCP